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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Why Exploration Is the Worst Pillar
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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8048143" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>This is because it's easier to make the mistake in the exploration pillar. The real issue here is if the game is cutting to the interesting parts. In combat, this is largely done for you as it doesn't even start until you've hit an interesting part. Social is similar, in that most people equate it with acting, which is fun. It gets less so when you're leaning on the social pillar for every shopkeep or stableboy, so there's some risk here, but it's largely offset by the pretend part being fun for most players.</p><p></p><p>Exploration, on the other hand... you can do long stretches of boring material and confuse this with what you should be doing. It's not the fault of the exploration pillar -- exploration isn't required to do this -- but rather of the way the GM structures the game they present. If you do exploration by glossing the 'transition' parts and drill down into the interesting things that happen, then exploration doesn't have this problem of boring just like the other pillars. The problem here is that GM's are often poorly taught (the rules have done a poor job of this for awhile now) and/or fixate on mechanically applying the mechanics of the game, like making a check to see if you get lost every hour with the result meaning you get an extra hour added onto the journey and another chance to roll. Boring. If you make one check, but have it have teeth -- getting lost has a cost or adventure -- then you're back out of boring and doing exploration in an entertaining way. It's really the same problem as forcing social encounters with all NPCs -- you have to shmooze the barkeep, the innkeep, store clerk 1, store clerk 2, the stableboy, and the random street encounter, but almost none of it actually matters. It's just easier to see the problem in exploration, it's not solely there.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8048143, member: 16814"] This is because it's easier to make the mistake in the exploration pillar. The real issue here is if the game is cutting to the interesting parts. In combat, this is largely done for you as it doesn't even start until you've hit an interesting part. Social is similar, in that most people equate it with acting, which is fun. It gets less so when you're leaning on the social pillar for every shopkeep or stableboy, so there's some risk here, but it's largely offset by the pretend part being fun for most players. Exploration, on the other hand... you can do long stretches of boring material and confuse this with what you should be doing. It's not the fault of the exploration pillar -- exploration isn't required to do this -- but rather of the way the GM structures the game they present. If you do exploration by glossing the 'transition' parts and drill down into the interesting things that happen, then exploration doesn't have this problem of boring just like the other pillars. The problem here is that GM's are often poorly taught (the rules have done a poor job of this for awhile now) and/or fixate on mechanically applying the mechanics of the game, like making a check to see if you get lost every hour with the result meaning you get an extra hour added onto the journey and another chance to roll. Boring. If you make one check, but have it have teeth -- getting lost has a cost or adventure -- then you're back out of boring and doing exploration in an entertaining way. It's really the same problem as forcing social encounters with all NPCs -- you have to shmooze the barkeep, the innkeep, store clerk 1, store clerk 2, the stableboy, and the random street encounter, but almost none of it actually matters. It's just easier to see the problem in exploration, it's not solely there. [/QUOTE]
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